In her Sonic Spectrum survey, Elise Kermani invited readers to locate sounds on the spectrum from noise to sound to music. Here, Skip LaPlante responds with an autobiography in music, sound, and noise.

Allison Hunter writes on Douglas Kahn, a modern musicologist who takes in the noise of modern battle, recordings from the tops of trains and the interiors of coalmines, and the musicality of undigitized everyday noise.